


I'd Be Home With You

by Crazyhotsoup



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dutch Van der Linde is a bad dad, Emotional Hurt, Graphic Description of Corpses, Grief/Mourning, Suicide, Whump, vent - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:54:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26890243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazyhotsoup/pseuds/Crazyhotsoup
Summary: "He had promised Arthur that he would always watch out for him. Not only in the traditional meaning but also as a final barrier; The last person the younger man could lean on.But he had been stretched so goddamn thin that he hadn't noticed how his son had started to curl in on himself."
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	I'd Be Home With You

**Author's Note:**

> Reader beware, this is just about **suicide** and mourning and fucking don't read if you're feeling low and/or are easily upset. Come back another day, or just not at all. 
> 
> Straight up vent, as most of my fics are. 
> 
> The title is from In A Week by Hozier. I wrote this and then realized I kinda was getting the vibe from it.

He had promised Arthur that he would always watch out for him. Not only in the traditional meaning but also as a final barrier; The last person the younger man could lean on. 

But he had been stretched so goddamn thin that he hadn't noticed how his son had started to curl in on himself. 

Arthur was no longer eating. 

_He was always so picky about what he put in his body._

He was no longer spending time around camp with the girls.

_He never really had a taste for women._

He hadn't even noticed the sudden change in demeanor. 

_Arthur had always been a quiet man._

Dutch had promised to be there for Arthur, and he had failed him. 

He stared down at the cooling body of his son in- 

_In what exactly?_

In pain. 

In disbelief. 

In _shame_

Dutch had failed him. He had failed his son. He had let him get too low. Dutch had let Arthur become what he himself had been before Hosea had found him. 

_Hosea._

The older man would be devastated. He would blame Dutch. He would follow Arthur to an early grave. He would leave Dutch by himself again. 

Dutch dropped to his knees on the grassy slope. 

Of course, Arthur had chosen somewhere beautiful. 

Hot tears streamed down his face as he stared at Arthur's mangled one. 

A crater had been carved out of Arthur's face. His left eye was gone, along with too much of his head. 

Guilt, shame, hurt, anger, love, and an irrevocable all-encompassing _pain_ bloomed inside of him. Wave after wave pulled tears from his eyes and a deep, aching cry from his chest. 

_He. Had. Failed._

Arthur was dead, and he had failed him. 

A deep rupturing loss exploded inside of him and Dutch draped himself over Arthur's body. 

He had been too late. 

He had found the note too late 

He had heard the shot before he reached the clearing at the top of the hill. 

There was nothing he could've done.

But there was. 

_He_ had offered Arthur support. 

_He_ had adopted the boy. 

_He_ knew what it was like to go through violent changes in his mood at seemingly random. 

_He_ had helped Arthur to understand what the melancholia was. 

And yet?

Arthur was still dead in the grass below him. 

Arthur's blood was seeping into the ground. 

Arthur's remaining eye was a cloudy blue, instead of the piercing one it had once been. 

He had failed his son.


End file.
